Sheffield Forgemasters International (SFIL) has produced a 325 tonne casting for the German company SMS Meer.that will form the foundation platen, or table, for a Kisco closed-die press in South Korea.
Casting the platen required Forgemasters to make a single pour of 570 tonnes of molten steel and the resulting product is even larger than the previous largest casting made by the company, for the Bohler Press in Austria.
Measuring almost ten metres in length, six and a half metres wide and just less than three metres in height, the giant casting is one of three cast components for the contract, worth £2.5 million in total.
The finished press will be used to make a wide variety of engineered components needing immense pressure for their production. Closed die forging forces hot metal into a pre-determined shape and is widely used in mass production industries such as automotive and aeronautical fields.
'Along with the foundation platen, we are also supplying a 230 tonne upper cross head and a 200 tonne lower cross head for the press. There is no other European foundry that can realistically cast anything over 180 tonnes,' said Graham Honeyman, Chief Executive at SFIL.
The main casting will undergo finishing work at Sheffield’s Davy Markham engineering company before being shipped to the client.
Sheffield Forgemasters International Ltd (SFIL) exports 80 percent of its products and won the contract from SMS Meer against stiff competition from the far-east.
The vast Kisco platen casting at Sheffield Forgemasters Brightside Lane site.
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